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What Is Application Security Monitoring? Everything You Need To Know

Application security monitoring is crucial for maintaining the integrity and security of your applications, but it can be challenging to navigate and ensure protection. This blog will help you understand and implement application performance monitoring effectively, ensuring the security of your deployments and data.

Alerty's free APM solution offers a valuable tool to help you achieve your objectives around application security monitoring. It provides real-time insights into your application performance, helping you quickly identify and address potential security vulnerabilities.

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Table of Contents

What Is Application Security Monitoring?

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Application security monitoring is critical for maintaining the security and integrity of applications and software systems. Teams can detect vulnerabilities, identify threats, and mitigate attacks by continuously monitoring application behavior, network traffic, and system logs. This practice is essential in today's digital landscape, where cyber threats constantly evolve and become more sophisticated.

The Growing Challenge of Application Security

Cloud applications are built with the help of a software supply chain, such as OSS libraries and third-party software. According to recent research, 68% of CISOs say vulnerability management has become more difficult due to increased software supply chain and cloud complexity. 74% of CISOs face a significant challenge in minimizing risk in their environments, given the difficulty of working with vendors to identify and resolve vulnerabilities.

Proactive Threat Detection and Data Protection

While there are disparate ways to track program performance and proactively address potential threats, effective application security monitoring combines several crucial components and significantly benefits organizations. It helps to ensure that applications remain:

  • Secure
  • Detect and mitigate vulnerabilities
  • Protect sensitive data from potential breaches

A comprehensive approach to application security monitoring can help organizations stay ahead of cyber threats and safeguard their digital assets.

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How Does Application Security Work?

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Security measures include improving security practices in the software development lifecycle and throughout the application lifecycle. All application security activities should minimize the likelihood of malicious hackers gaining unauthorized access to systems, applications, or data. The ultimate goal of application security is to prevent attackers from accessing, modifying, or deleting sensitive or proprietary data.

Safeguarding Information Systems

Any action taken to ensure application security is a countermeasure or security control. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines a security control as A safeguard or countermeasure prescribed for an information system or an organization designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its information and to meet a set of defined security requirements.

Firewalls for Software and Routers for Hardware

An application firewall is a countermeasure commonly used for software. Firewalls determine how files are executed and how data is handled based on the specific installed program. Routers are the most common countermeasure for hardware. They prevent an individual computer's Internet Protocol (IP) address from being directly visible on the Internet.

Other countermeasures include:

  • Conventional firewalls
  • Encryption and decryption programs
  • Antivirus programs
  • Spyware detection and removal programs
  • Biometric authentication systems

All-in-one Monitoring Solution

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering:

  • Application performance monitoring
  • Database monitoring
  • Incident management

It supports technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, helping developers identify and fix issues. 

  • Alerty monitors databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS
  • Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption
  • It features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience
  • Its universal service monitoring covers dependencies like Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel. 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring. 

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution today!

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Significance Of Application Security Monitoring

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Application security, including the monitoring and managing of application vulnerabilities, is important for several reasons, including the following:

1. Finding and fixing vulnerabilities reduces security risks, and doing so helps reduce an organization's overall attack surface.

2. Software vulnerabilities are common. While not all are serious, even noncritical vulnerabilities can be combined to form attack chains. Reducing the number of security vulnerabilities and weaknesses helps reduce the overall impact of attacks.

3. Taking a proactive approach to application security is better than reactive security measures. Being proactive enables defenders to identify and neutralize attacks earlier, sometimes before damage is done.

4. As enterprises move more data, code, and operations into the cloud, attacks against those assets can increase. Application security measures can help reduce the impact of such attacks.

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Goals Of Application Security Monitoring

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Application monitoring has three primary goals: 

  • Identify risks
  • Detect potential vulnerabilities
  • Respond appropriately

While point-in-time monitoring provides a security snapshot, it doesn’t tell the whole story. With a continuous, ongoing monitoring approach, organizations can enjoy several advantages. These advantages include:

  • Quickly identifying
  • Prioritizing
  • Correcting
  • Reporting critical application vulnerabilities

Identification

The identification stage of application security monitoring involves discovering and pinpointing potential security weaknesses within an application’s code, configuration, or design. Identifying critical vulnerabilities is important in understanding an application’s overall security posture.

By continuously monitoring an application, security teams can detect and identify vulnerabilities in software solutions or their configurations. These could include issues like:

  • Vulnerable and outdated components
  • Injections
  • Software and data integrity failures

Detection

Continuous application security monitoring helps detect exploit attempts in real-time. This approach can determine and block malicious activity by monitoring the data flow within the application from the user to the database. During the development stage, vulnerabilities can arise when developers use third-party open-source code or make an error in application logic. 

By continuously monitoring an application's security state, teams can detect vulnerabilities as soon as they emerge. Early detection enables timely remediation before attackers can exploit the vulnerability. If a vulnerability remains undetected, the compromised code can allow attackers access to data they’re not authorized to have.

Response and remediation

After detecting a security incident, application security monitoring enables speedy responses and mitigation. Data from application security monitoring tools helps teams understand the nature of the incident and its impact. Armed with data, teams can:

  • Effectively investigate
  • Contain
  • Remediate the issue

Rapid identification and remediation are key to minimizing a security incident’s impact. Continuous monitoring allows security teams to:

  • Identify security breaches quickly
  • Investigate the root cause
  • Implement remediation actions

This reduces the overall time to respond to and remediate critical security incidents.

Proactive prioritization

Proactive prioritization of vulnerabilities is a strategic approach to managing security vulnerabilities that focuses resources on first addressing the most critical and high-impact issues. Organizations can proactively manage security risks by identifying and prioritizing threat patterns. These trends can help them implement security measures that address specific risks and reduce the likelihood of further attacks.

By focusing on the most critical vulnerabilities that pose the greatest risk, organizations can reduce their exposure to potential security breaches and make informed decisions about where to invest in remediation efforts. This approach helps organizations address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by malicious hackers and ultimately enhances their overall security posture.

Improved incident response and forensics

Incident response is a structured approach that focuses on addressing and mitigating the immediate effects of security incidents. Forensics focuses on the systemic investigation and analysis of digital evidence to determine root causes.

Continuous security monitoring provides detailed logs and audit trails that are valuable during incident response and forensic investigations. These logs and trails can help teams:

  • Reconstruct the timeline of events
  • Understand a security incident’s scope and impact
  • Gather evidence for legal or regulatory purposes

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10 Prominent Application Security Risks

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There are plenty of ways to identify risks. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)  describes web application software's top vulnerabilities. The Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) lists the top 25 most dangerous software weaknesses, which helps developers identify what vulnerabilities they should focus on.

According to the CWE, the following are the most critical application security risks you can find in software today:

1. Out-of-bounds write

Out-of-bounds write vulnerabilities occur when an application writes to a memory location that exceeds the buffer's boundary, such as writing to an array beyond its highest index. This can lead to:

  • Application crashes
  • Data corruption
  • Malicious code execution

Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by overwriting critical data, compromising the application's integrity, availability, and confidentiality.

2. Cross-site scripting (XSS)

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a prevalent attack vector where attackers inject malicious scripts into an otherwise secure website to target visitors. These scripts can:

  • Steal sensitive data
  • Session tokens
  • Control the user's interactions with the site

By doing so, attackers can compromise the application and its users and even spread malware to other users.

3. SQL injection

SQL injection is an attack that exploits vulnerabilities in an application's SQL queries to gain unauthorized access to its database. Attackers can manipulate the queries to execute arbitrary commands, access sensitive data, and even delete or modify database records. Such attacks can result in severe data breaches and have significant financial and reputation implications for the affected organization.

4. Improper input validation

Improper input validation occurs when an application does not adequately validate user inputs, allowing attackers to inject malicious data. This can lead to various attacks, such as:

  • Code injection
  • Command injection
  • SQL injection

By exploiting this vulnerability, attackers can compromise the application's security, sensitive data, and normal operations.

5. Out-of-bounds read

Out-of-bounds read vulnerabilities occur when an application reads data past the buffer's boundary, leading to application crashes or exposing sensitive information stored in memory. Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to leak critical information, such as:

  • Passwords
  • Encryption keys
  • Other confidential data

6. OS command injection

OS command injection vulnerabilities allow attackers to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system, compromising the application's security and integrity. By manipulating input parameters, attackers can:

  • Execute malicious commands
  • Access sensitive data
  • Disrupt the application's normal operations

This can lead to severe consequences, such as:

  • Unauthorized data access
  • System compromise
  • Service disruption

7. Use after free (UAF)

Use after free vulnerabilities occur when an application continues to use memory after freeing it, leading to memory corruption and potential code execution. Attackers can exploit these vulnerabilities by:

  • Manipulating the dangling pointers to execute arbitrary code
  • Compromise the application's security
  • Gain unauthorized access to critical resources

8. Path traversal attack

Path traversal attacks enable attackers to access files and directories outside the application's intended scope, leading to unauthorized data access and information disclosure. By manipulating file paths, attackers can access sensitive files, configuration files, and source code, compromising the application's security and exposing critical information to unauthorized third parties.

9. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)

Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks trick users into unknowingly performing actions on a website they are authenticated to, such as:

  • Changing passwords
  • Transferring funds
  • Modifying account settings

By exploiting this vulnerability, attackers can trick users into executing malicious actions that:

  • Compromise their accounts
  • Compromise sensitive data
  • Disrupt the application's normal operations.

10. Unrestricted upload of files with dangerous type

Unrestricted file upload vulnerabilities allow users to upload files with dangerous file types, such as executable files or scripts. Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to:

  • Upload malicious files to the server
  • Compromise the application's security
  • Execute arbitrary code

This can pose significant risks to the application and its users, which leads to:

  • Unauthorized access
  • Data breaches
  • System compromise

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Common Categories Of Application Security

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Authentication is vital in determining the first line of defense for any application. Authentication procedures ensure that a user is who they say they are. This step is crucial as it helps validate and verify the user's identity when logging into the application. 

Multi-factor authentication takes this process further by requiring more than one form of authentication for the user to access the application. These factors might involve: 

  • Something the user knows (e.g., a password)
  • Something they have (e.g., a mobile device)
  • Something they are (e.g., a thumbprint or facial recognition)

Authorization: Keeping Unauthorized Users at Bay

After a user has successfully passed the authentication process, the application must determine whether they are authorized to access and use the application. The system accomplishes this by validating that a user has the necessary permission to access the application and comparing the user's identity with a list of authorized users. 

It is important to note that authentication must precede authorization to ensure that only validated user credentials match the list of authorized users.

Encryption: Safeguarding Sensitive Data

Encryption plays a critical role in protecting sensitive data from prying eyes. After a user has been authenticated and is actively using the application, encryption can be used to secure sensitive data from being viewed or used by cybercriminals. In cloud-based applications, traffic containing sensitive data moving between the end user and the cloud can be encrypted to maintain data security.

Logging: Tracking Who, What, and When

Logging is an essential aspect of application security that aids in identifying the details of a security breach. In a security breach, logging can help pinpoint who accessed the data and how they gained access. Application log files provide a timestamped record of the specific aspects of the application that were accessed and by whom.

Application Security Testing: The Final Piece of the Puzzle

Application security testing is a crucial process that ensures all security controls within the application function correctly. This step is a final check to verify that the application's security features are working effectively. Application security testing helps identify any vulnerabilities or weaknesses that could potentially be exploited by cybercriminals.

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6 Best Practices For Application Security

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Effective application security monitoring combines logging, scanning, detection, and identification. The following best practices can help organizations achieve these goals:

1. Prioritize Visibility

Application security monitoring solutions deliver value based on visibility. The more visible and accessible local, hybrid, and cloud networks are, the more accurate and timely the results of app sec monitoring will be. As a result, it’s critical to prioritize IT tools and environments that offer interconnection and interoperation to help underpin the efficacy of application monitoring tools.

2. Enable Analytics

Visibility sets the stage, while analytics help turn data into action. By deploying analytics tools capable of capturing and correlating data from runtime to session termination, teams are better equipped to make the most of real-time monitoring tools.

3. Implement AI

Even for experienced teams, the sheer volume of user, incident, and operational data makes it virtually impossible to keep pace with the volume and variety of security monitoring alerts. Implementing AI-assisted vulnerability identification and prioritization tools can help businesses determine the best course of immediate action and create an evolving knowledge base to help limit the impact of future threats.

4. Bring Staff On Board

The best monitoring tools cannot perform to their full potential without support from staff. As a result, organizations need to involve staff from the start. This may include asking for feedback about current monitoring pain points, looking for suggestions about potential solutions, and allowing teams to see platforms in action before they are deployed at scale.

5. Address Vulnerabilities in Open-Source & Third-Party Software

Open-source software tools, libraries, and modules bring a lot of advantages to software development. They can expose your application to a lot of security vulnerabilities. Hence, it is important to keep track of updates from such software and apply security patches as soon as they are released to avoid exposure to cyber threats.

6. Integrate Security Scanning for Pipelines

Follow an integrated security approach that triggers security scanning at every code commit or deployment. This makes addressing security vulnerabilities faster. Organizations must also hire security experts to realize these CI/CD practices.

Empowering Developers and Startups

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering:

  • Application performance monitoring
  • Database monitoring
  • Incident management

It supports technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, helping developers identify and fix issues. 

  • Alerty monitors databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS
  • Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption
  • It features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience
  • Its universal service monitoring covers dependencies like Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel. 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring. 

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution today!

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Application Security Monitoring And Testing Techniques And Tools

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There are many ways you can secure your applications from common vulnerabilities, such as the ones described above. Common AppSec techniques include:

  • Access control
  • Authorization
  • Validation checks
  • Security testing
  • Data encryption

Authentication and Authorization

Control access by implementing proper authentication mechanisms that restrict access to applications. Today, password-based access control is no longer enough—attackers can easily evade weak passwords. Use multi-factor authentication to provide an additional layer of security.

Authentication should follow authorization to grant access only to required resources for authenticated users.

Proper Input Validation Checks

Validate user input against every acceptable criterion. This method includes allowing inputs from specific formats and lengths, checking for executables, etc.

Encryption

Encrypt data that flows between the application and the end user. This way, cybercriminals cannot view traffic contents with sensitive data. This also involves encrypting application configurations like:

  • Database credentials
  • API shared secrets
  • System-to-system user credentials

Access Logs

Maintaining access logs for the application enables organizations to track who accesses it. This makes it easy to identify which IP address caused a data breach.

Code Obfuscation Techniques

Code obfuscation tools hide the application code so attackers cannot access its internal functionalities. This technique prevents code tampering and reverse engineering attacks.

Application Security Testing Tools

Different security testing tools allow developers to analyze the code during development and production. These are security testing tools you should incorporate into your application:

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Static security testing tools allow developers to quickly identify security vulnerabilities in the code and fix them during development.

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

These tools can analyze security vulnerabilities in production environments in real-time. They also enable developers to simulate cyberattacks and detect runtime errors.

Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST)

This hybrid of SAST and DAST provides more accurate security testing results. With this approach, you can analyze the code during any stage of development and in real-time in the production application.

Run-time Application Security Protection (RASP)

These tools allow organizations to run continuous security testing and automate the incident response during security breaches. 

For example, alerting the security teams, terminating the application to avoid spreading the threat, etc.

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Application Security Trends And Future

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Application security is an ever-evolving field that continually adapts to new technologies and challenges that organizations face in a rapidly changing digital landscape. Over the years, there have been marked shifts in the approach to application security, from mainframes to networked personal computers and now to the cloud. 

With the increasing reliance on automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, the application security field needs to incorporate these technologies into its tools to stay ahead of evolving threats.

Securing the Future

As the risks of deploying insecure applications escalate, developers must use tools and techniques that guide secure development practices. With the growing focus on securing cloud-based information assets and resources, application security will continue to evolve in line with these changes. 

The Rise of Automated Defense

Application security professionals increasingly leverage automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to identify vulnerabilities and threats proactively. By incorporating these technologies into their toolsets, security professionals can better mitigate risks associated with application vulnerabilities.

Collaboration is Key

As the industry moves towards more cloud-based resources, application developers and security professionals must collaborate closely to ensure secure development practices are followed. This collaboration will be vital in detecting and mitigating application security risks before they become exploitable threats in the cloud environment.

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Catch Issues Before They Affect Your Users with Alerty's Free APM Solution

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service specifically designed for developers and early-stage startups. It offers a comprehensive suite of features, including:

  • Application performance monitoring
  • Database monitoring
  • Incident management

This all-in-one solution supports popular technologies such as NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, widely used in modern web development. With Alerty, developers can quickly identify and resolve application performance issues, ensuring a seamless user experience.

Efficient Database Monitoring for Optimal Performance

One of Alerty's standout features is its database monitoring capabilities. It supports databases, allowing developers to track key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption, such as:

  • Supabase
  • PostgreSQL
  • RDS

By closely monitoring these critical performance indicators, developers can proactively address potential issues before they impact the end-user experience. Alerty empowers developers to keep their databases running smoothly and efficiently, minimizing downtime and maximizing performance.

Real User Monitoring for Enhanced User Experience

Alerty also offers Real User Monitoring (RUM) functionality. This feature allows developers to gain valuable insights into how real users interact with their applications. By analyzing user behavior, developers can optimize their applications' performance and provide a superior user experience. With Alerty's RUM capabilities, developers can make data-driven decisions to enhance their applications and drive user engagement.

Universal Service Monitoring for Complete Visibility

Alerty goes beyond monitoring just applications and databases. It offers Universal Service Monitoring, which covers dependencies like:

  • Stripe API
  • OpenAI
  • Vercel

By monitoring these external services, developers can ensure their applications remain highly available and performant. Alerty provides a comprehensive view of all dependencies, enabling developers to identify and address any issues that may arise quickly. With universal service monitoring, developers can rest assured that their applications are running smoothly and efficiently.

AI-Powered Simplified Setup for Cost-Effective Monitoring

Alerty leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to simplify the setup process, providing developers with a cost-effective monitoring solution. By automating many setup tasks, Alerty reduces the time and effort required to implement monitoring for applications and databases. Compared to competitors, Alerty offers a more affordable solution without compromising features or performance. This makes it ideal for developers and small teams looking for efficient and budget-friendly monitoring solutions.

Seamless Integration with Third-Party Tools for Enhanced Efficiency

Alerty is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup and seamless integration with tools like Sentry. This integration lets developers streamline their monitoring workflows and centralize their monitoring data. By connecting Alerty with Sentry, developers can enhance their incident management processes and quickly resolve any issues that may arise. 

With Alerty, developers can catch performance issues before impacting users and ensure their applications run smoothly.

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